


Time and Fevers

by HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M, Post Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-26
Updated: 2008-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:28:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4830773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By Nova</p><p>Fifteen years after the shoot-out on Gauda Prime, Blake, now working as Avalon's errand boy, comes across Avon again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Fevers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was originally archived at [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hermit_Library), which was closed due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hermitlibrary/profile). 
> 
> This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching for the zine they were originally published in on [Fanlore](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page).
> 
> Note from the author: Previously Published in Fire and Ice #7, ed. Kathleen Resch

I was feeling very sorry for myself as I scrambled out of the shuttle that had transported me from the orbital spaceport down to Gules. Oh, the trip had been tolerable enough, apart from the absence of leg room and some muzak bleating insistently. But somehow those twangy synthoharp chords had stirred up the dregs of an old anger.

Anger at Deva, for leaving me? Or anger at myself, for being so pathetically afraid that I was about to spend the rest of my life alone?

Revolutionaries are supposed to be committed to personal autonomy, as well as galactic freedom, but the truth is, I've always needed to have someone around. I'd only gone without a partner for five years of my adult life and I was mindwiped for four of them. As for the remaining year - well, at that point I was so preoccupied that I'd hardly even noticed when Jenna packed her belongings and moved out of my cabin.

Ah, memories. I sometimes think I was better off without them.

I flexed my stiff legs, then tilted my head back and gazed up at the silvery towers of an Old Earth cathedral translated into xenite. From an engineer's point of view, it was a daft idea - along with the usual buttresses, the architect had decided to sling an unnecessary bunch of protomodernist girders across the facade. Mind you, from a freedom fighter's point of view, the design would've been a gift. I was here as an emissary, not a guerilla, but I caught myself charting an easy climb, starting from the glittering gargoyles round the door, which would make useful footholds, then swinging up onto an ornamental ledge and along the girder that braced a rather presidential balcony.

For a moment, I wondered whether I should warn the occupants but on reflection, I realised that DasKapital Enterprises didn't need to worry about security, because the company owned the entire planet. The cathedral was, in fact, the only building on Gules, apart from the armaments factory and the compound that housed DasK's workers, so its apparent accessibility was just a sophisticated way of flaunting its very real defences. Guards swarmed the shuttleport and lined the square in front of the cathedral, armed with the latest DasK weaponry, ready to dispose of any invaders who managed to bypass DasK's so-far-invincible planetary shield. Armaments and inventions were clearly a lucrative business, although I didn't grudge DasK their wealth. After all, they had refused to sell arms to Sleer's Refederation as consistently as they'd supported Avalon's Alliance of Revolutionary Planets. Hence my presence here on Gules.

I plodded down an avenue of guards, feeling very small against the sky-high monolith. Not that I needed a monolith to make me feel diminished. Fifteen years had slipped by since I'd been a figurehead for the revolution. When I glanced at my blurred reflection in the xenite walls, I saw a portly unshaven middle-aged bloke, like a frontier planet mayor with a substantial corporation - although actually the mayoral comparison was coming it a bit strong. I was just Avalon's errand boy these days. Now that Deva was gone, I had nothing left, not even my name.

'Jor Grimm,' I said, displaying my pass to the guard at the door. (A private joke, combining my personal conviction that Roj Blake was a fairy tale with Deva's routine question, 'Why are you looking so grim and bleak?')

The guard nodded and clipped a tag onto my battered leather jerkin. Plass doors slid open, admitting me into the foyer. I summed it up at a glance - no more medieval references, just acres of sleek xenite walls and silver-grey ersatz marble floors - and went on thinking about Deva. The most uncomplicatedly loyal man I'd ever known. In all our fifteen years together, we'd never had a single argument. Deva had rescued me from the debacle at Gauda Prime, after which I'd had been dead in the eyes of the world - and Avon, Vila and the rest had been dead by any criteria you care to name. Deva had made a place for us at Avalon's headquarters. Deva had endured my moodiness and tantrums without a murmur of complaint.

I often wondered what he'd got out of it.

The muzak from the shuttle kept oozing through my head, as irritating as a syrup stain on my jerkin, still sticky hours later. '_Some day I'll get over you._' It would've been nice if the words had reminded me of Deva but they didn't. The trouble had started long before that. A pity I'd never been able to get over ...

At that point, my boot jarred against an ersatz marble barrier, letting me know that I'd reached the reception desk. 'Jor Grimm,' I said again. 'I'm here to see whether I can arrange a consignment of heat sensors for the ARP.'

The receptionist smoothed flawless silver-grey hair, the exact colour of ersatz marble, and held out an elegant hand for my credentials. 'Smart move, sending a real live male, not an e-mail,' he said in an unexpected Deltan accent. 'We're running a bit short on h-sensors but Avalon's favourite round here, so I'll let you have a word with the boss. If you ask nicely, he might shunt you up to the top of the queue.'

At his almost imperceptible signal, a guard detached herself from the wall. She led me across another slippery expanse of floor and ushered me into a long low room, so resolutely minimalist that it contained nothing but a massive desk and a second door at the far end. No ersatz marble here. The desk was a slab of authentic Obsidian igneous rock and the man bent over a state-of-the-art computing cube matched my image of an authentic company director. Fleshy jaw, prominent nose, hair impeccably groomed but receding at the temples, with a white badger-stripe sweeping back from the forehead, and a sombre charcoal jacket tailored to flatter middle-aged girth. He looked up, blinked and hit a button at the side of the desk.

'Blake,' he stated, pushing his chair back. As bars slammed down from the ceiling, caging off the desk, he activated the intercom and snarled, 'Give him anything he wants, at cost. Then get him out of here.'

He turned his back on me and strolled towards the far door, unhurried but determined. 'Avon?' I whispered, as the door hissed open. No answer, naturally. I grabbed the bars, filled my capsized lungs with air and shouted, 'Avon! Kerr Avon! Come back, you bastard.'

The door hissed shut but I went on rattling the bars until a blaster muzzle rammed into my back, just above the kidneys. 'Steady on,' said the guard's voice. 'We don't appreciate that kind of behaviour. Hands up and over to the wall - and slowly does it. You don't want to startle me, sport.'

She sounded convincing and besides, any guard employed by Avon was guaranteed to be lethal. But when I turned, hands lifting, she inexplicably lowered her gun and backed away. I glanced down the length of the room and saw two women framed in the doorway. A plump blonde with a crewcut, knowing eyes and a gunslinger's swagger, one arm hooked over the shoulder of her taller, more stately companion, whose iron grey curls made an effective contrast to her ebony skin. There was something vaguely familiar about them but I couldn't quite place it. While I was interrogating my memory, they ran their eyes across me in identically appraising stares.

'That's him, all right,' the black woman said. 'Ten kilos heavier than the holos - I rather like the Falstaff effect - and he's gone grey, like the rest of us. But he's still Roj Blake, my father's revolutionary pin-up boy.'

'Yes, I recognise him now,' the blonde agreed. 'Leave him to us, Hunter. We'll take over from here.'

As the guard shrugged and strode out, I massaged the small of my back reproachfully. 'You seem to know who I am,' I growled. 'But who the hell are you?'

'I'm Dayna Mellanby,' the black woman said, 'and this is Soolin. We're Avon's chief executive officers and we'd like to invite you to dinner, so you can tell us _all_ about him.'

*

Three hours later Dayna tipped back her chair and licked brouillika juice from her fingers, sighing contentedly. 'Thanks for the stories, Blake,' she said. 'Cally told me some of what happened in the early days on Liberator but the Auronar tend to see things differently from the rest of us. And Vila never stopped talking about the original Blake's Seven but - well, he would've killed me for saying this but the truth is, he idealised Avon. You don't, which makes it useful to get your perspective.'

'Besides, we always wanted to meet you,' Soolin drawled, foraging through a dish of Lindorian nuts to find the remaining macadamias. 'We've been working with Avon for the best part of two decades but he's a hard man to understand. Somehow, I formed an impression that you're the key to a lot of his secrets.'

I stared morosely into my brandy glass. Light refracted through the liquid, distorting the shape of my fingers. Three hours of Avon memorabilia had exhausted me. I hadn't rehearsed those stories for years, certainly not to Deva and, even more certainly, not on my own account. Still, the human mind is resilient. By now, I'd almost recovered from the shock of discovering that Avon was alive. As a matter of fact, I was just beginning to wonder which of the two women he was sleeping with.

So it shocked me all over again when Soolin tossed a macadamia, caught it and added casually, 'Did you realise Avon was in love with you?'

Dayna's chair thudded to the floor. 'Soo!' she protested, one hand waving wildly, as if she could scrub out the last sentence. 'We don't know that. It's just a theory we came up with. Avon would hate it, if he -'

'Avon hates everything and everyone,' Soolin said placidly. 'If I confined myself to topics he approves of, I'd never say anything at all. Well, Blake? Do you remember the question or should I repeat it?'

'Yes, I remember,' I said with an effort. 'The answer is no.'

'And if you accept our theory, what then?' Soolin persisted. 'Would you be interested?'

I took a swig of the brandy and felt its mellow warmth spread out through my body, easing its way down to the groin. 'The answer to your second question would be yes,' I said formally.

Volatile as a child, Dayna sat up straight and applauded. 'Oh, good!' she said. 'In that case, we have a plan.'

I looked from one woman to the other - Dayna leaning forward, positively humming with energy; Soolin leaning back, sandy lashes shading the implacable gleam in her eyes. Something told me I was caught between an irresistible force and an immovable object.

'A plan?' I repeated fatalistically. 'All right, what is it?'

*

They led me through a maze of corridors, giggling like schoolgirls. Dayna keyed the codes into a series of three herculaneum-bound security doors. While she eased the third door open, Soolin stepped back and grinned up at me.

'You're on your own now,' she said. 'Good luck, Blake.'

She settled a small hand between my shoulder blades and shoved. As I stumbled over the threshold, my eyes flicked from side to side, automatically taking an inventory of the room. White walls, a black leather couch, a chiropractic machine, an elaborate sound system, a mosaic of vidscreens and data display units and a floor-to-ceiling window, opening onto a balcony. Avon was out on the balcony, gazing at a sky full of stars.

'Get out, Blake,' he said, without turning.

'Make me,' I replied.

Avon's shoulders lifted in a shrug, pleating the fine cotton of his black shirt. 'Since my chief executive officers clearly let you in, I don't like my chances,' he decided. 'Very well, if you insist on staying, you may as well make yourself useful. Fetch me a glass of Scotian whisky from the cabinet by the couch.'

I found a heavy tumbler - genuine glass, not plass - poured a generous measure and carried it across to Avon, lapping my hand over his to fold it round the tumbler. He flinched at the touch, disposed of the whisky in one long swallow and hurled the tumbler at the wall, where it exploded in a nova of diamond shards.

'Feeling better now?' I asked.

'Not noticeably,' he said. 'Would you mind explaining how you returned from the dead?'

'Oh, I was never dead,' I told him, propping an elbow on the balcony rail. 'As you presumably remember, shortly after you shot me, the Gauda Prime rebels rallied and held the Feds off for a few more hours. That gave my computer expert time to pack me into a cryogenic capsule, which he somehow transported halfway across the galaxy to Avalon's headquarters. Her surgeons repaired my body without too much difficulty but they couldn't do the same for my mind. Avalon decided I'd have more value as a martyr to the cause than a broken-down bounty hunter, so I changed my name and settled there with Deva.'

'Such loyal devotion,' Avon commented, still obstinately refusing to look in my direction, although I could see his hand flexing and clenching on the balcony rail. 'I hope you rewarded this Deva of yours suitably.'

'We were lovers for fifteen years,' I said brusquely. 'I don't know whether that counts as much of a reward.'

I gazed up at the stars, comparing their fierce blaze to the pale gleams in the polluted sky above Avalon's base. Beside me, Avon shifted suddenly, exposing the starry outline of his profile.

'Past tense?' he said with his usual acuity.

'Past tense,' I confirmed. 'He died six months ago. Heart failure, on a frontier planet with no facilities for organ replacement.'

Avon said, 'Ah,' and contemplated his hands for a while. The fine line between his eyebrows suggested that he was trying to remember what one was supposed to say on these occasions but, after a few minutes spent struggling with the inevitable grief and guilt, I decided not to wait.

'And you?' I asked and watched Avon's back straighten and stiffen.

'Oh, fifteen year relationships are hardly my style,' he said with a mocking lilt to his voice, although it wasn't clear whether he was mocking me or himself.

'I wouldn't know about that,' I said equably. 'As it happens, I was intending to ask how you survived Gauda Prime. According to Deva, you were sprawled across my body, bleeding from seven separate wounds. Since that was the last I heard of you, I naturally assumed ...'

Despite my best efforts, I found myself unable to complete the sentence. Avon frowned and averted his head, depriving me of the starry profile.

'When the Federation took the Gauda Prime base, my crew and I ended up in a military hospital,' he said finally. 'Luckily, I had access to a large sum of credits, in an account I established after Vila and I took an impromptu trip to Freedom City, and money can solve most problems. Most, but not all. Tarrant died from his wounds and Vila - well, Dayna and Soolin insist he died of a broken heart. However, I was able to purchase a reasonable standard of care and a place on the next outward bound cruiser for the girls and myself, which left us with enough capital to buy this planet and establish DasKapital Enterprises. Meanwhile, the military hospital informed Commissioner Sleer that we were dead. Since no one else in the galaxy seemed likely to care what had become of us ...'

His voice trailed away, just as mine had. He turned and looked directly at me, for the first time since I'd walked into his office. There were pouches under his eyes, deep lines etched beside his mouth and his brows feathered away more quizzically than before - although, somehow, all of that only served to focus my attention even more unerringly on those eyes and that mouth.

'Dr Jungfrau will be most displeased,' he said lightly. 'Fifteen years of intensive psychoanalysis, based on a false premise.'

'Because you didn't kill me?' I said. 'Let's drink to false premises, then.'

I went back inside for another pair of tumblers and glanced up to find Avon at my elbow. 'On reflection, Dr Jungfrau's analysis would still stand, if she knew you were alive,' he informed me.

'A guessing game, Avon?' I asked. 'Sorry, I'm not in the mood. Why don't you just spit it out?'

'After one whisky? You underestimate me, Blake.'

His hand inscribed a flourish on the air, then lifted to smooth the white stripe at his temple: the flamboyantly rueful mannerisms of an aging beauty. I could, I suppose, have derived a certain pleasure from observing the revenges that time had taken on him but as a matter of fact, I just felt ridiculously protective. To cover that irrelevant emotion, I filled both tumblers and sat down on the couch. Avon settled beside me and whisked the second tumbler out of my grasp, careful to avoid any physical contact, although either the whisky or a round of our old banter had relaxed him enough to let him meet my eyes more or less continuously.

'Tell me about your friend Deva,' he said, with his familiar knack for finding and probing my sore spots. 'It seems uncharacteristically obliging of you to have given him fifteen years of your life, when you are not sexually interested in men.'

I'd been wondering, off and on, about Soolin's theory but I'd almost discarded it by then. However, this was a fishing expedition, if I ever saw one. It was also a game two could play.

'Where did you get that idea?' I asked with a creditable imitation of surprise. 'If you'd ever listened to my speeches, you'd know the Freedom Party was fighting for the full range of freedoms. I've slept with a lot of men in my time - and a lot of women too, although on balance I prefer men.'

Avon hoisted his tumbler and took refuge behind its glassy screen. 'I see,' he said. 'Not an attitude that would have elicited much approval on Salem-6, where I grew up.'

'I didn't realise you were a Salemite,' I said, suppressing a grin. That explained a lot about Avon, Salemites being notorious for their combination of puritanism and perversity. 'Still, you've been away from Salem-6 for several decades now. I can't imagine that you've been celibate all this time, even if you aren't given to fifteen year relationships.'

I didn't really expect Avon to rise to such an obvious piece of bait, so I was surprised when he proceeded to empty his tumbler and reach for the bottle again. 'I slept with Cally once, a year after you left the Liberator,' he said, articulating the words with diamond-tipped precision. 'At that point, I decided I was fundamentally unsuited to heterosexual relationships. However, Dr Jungfrau is an overqualified pimp. Under her expert guidance, I investigated the queer bar scene, where I discovered that I am not averse to homosexual activity. On the other hand, I don't appear to be interested in either paid sex or sex with strangers, so I abandoned the effort and opted for celibacy.'

I slid my hand inside my shirt and surreptitiously massaged my midriff, as winded as if Avon had punched me in the solar plexus. For some unguessable reason, he'd chosen to impart more personal information in the last thirty seconds than in the entire two years we'd spent together on Liberator. How to react? I was tempted to say, 'All right, what's your position on having sex with men you used to know reasonably well?' but the direct approach rarely worked with Avon. I retrieved my hand and gnawed at a knuckle, thought fast and tried something more circuitous.

'Dr Jungfrau's false premise is starting to sound rather intriguing. What is it?'

Avon took another swig of the whisky and fixed me with an intent, resistant glare. 'It is none of your business, Blake,' he snarled.

He slung a casual arm across the back of the couch, then spoilt the effect by sliding down to cushion his cheek on his arm. I leaned forward, gripped his shoulder and shook it slightly.

'Don't be shy, Avon,' I said, ferociously cheerful. 'We're old ... friends, enemies, whatever you choose. You can tell me.'

'Dr Jungfrau is a neo-Freudian,' he said flatly. 'She believes that I shot you as a substitute for fucking you, and that I refrained from the latter course of action because -' He broke off and sketched another of his stagy gestures. 'Oh, I forget. Something to do with my parents, I suppose.'

He clearly intended me to be shocked but I grew up on Woodstock and nothing sexual ever shocked a Woodstocker. 'So you do have parents?' I said with a grin. 'I always wondered about that.'

'I am not a machine,' Avon slurred. 'Unfortunately.'

'Well, you've done your best,' I said, glancing round the room. 'You appear to be almost fully automated by now.'

Avon's eyes followed mine, lingering wistfully on the array of gadgets. While his attention was distracted, I made my next move, shifting my hand from his shoulder to the curve of his cheek and leaning in to study the refraction of light across his pupils. He stared back, hypnotised.

'And _do_ you want to fuck me, Avon?' I murmured.

'Apparently,' he breathed.

'Then where's your bed?' I asked, reaching for his hand.

That was a mistake. Avon reared back and wrenched away from me. 'Too late, Blake,' he said. 'It was probably too late at the point where we first met, when I was still young and attractive. It is certainly too late now.'

He angled his head towards the light, deliberately exposing the network of lines around his eyes and the sagging flesh under his jaw, flaunting the imperfections with a bravado that tugged at my heart strings.

'You look very beautiful to me,' I said roughly. 'By your own standards, this hardly counts as too late.'

Before he had time to think of another objection, I slid my hand inside the cotton shirt to cup his left pectoral, riding the rhythm of his heartbeat while I investigated the texture of his skin. Sleek as silk, with the same delicate grain as the cotton, sliding loose against the bone: one of the inevitable consequences of aging. Avon's chest rose and fell in a soft, shuddering sigh but when I looked up, his eyes were dark with panic.

'Don't,' he managed, so I withdrew my hand.

'Not if you dislike it,' I agreed. 'What do you want me to do now, Avon?'

'Please leave,' he said in a convulsive gasp and lurched forward, collapsing against my shoulder.

I frowned down at the top of his head, then tucked a finger under his chin and tilted his face towards me. When his eyes slid shut and his lips parted, I muttered, 'Oh, hell,' closed the gap between us and kissed him. Avon's mouth moved under mine, moist and infinitely pliable, as he murmured inarticulately, knotting a hand in my curls to hold me in place, while his other hand ran an overlay of teasing touches against the grain of my three-day beard. I was just about to slam him against the couch and kiss him more extravagantly, when I dredged up the echo of his last two words and detached myself with an effort.

'I can still leave,' I said shakily. 'But the offer won't last much longer.'

'I suspect we have already passed that point,' Avon told me. 'However, you might do something about the bristles, before we proceed any further.'

He followed me into the bathroom, leaning against the wall and watching while I shaved. I sneaked a sideways glance at him, reflecting that this kind of constant scrutiny might make some people self-conscious, wondering whether I was one of them. When I hauled him into another kiss, to break the stare, he ran an assessing fingertip along my jawline.

'That's better,' he approved. 'To bed, Blake. I am too old to fuck on a tiled floor.'

I don't think I'd fully believed, until then, that I was going to get what I'd wanted for so long. But the word 'fuck' from Avon's prim Salemite mouth had a more instantaneous effect than the best of Vila's pornovid collection. I swung away, ripping at the fastenings on my jerkin. Avon overtook me, tearing off his shirt. I caught hold of him as he passed and buried my hands in the greying pelt that quilted his chest. Avon threw his head back and whimpered softly.

Then he pulled away and stalked round to the far side of bed, where he contrived to strip and whisk himself under the sheets before I had so much as unbuckled my belt. He heaped the pillows together and lounged back, watching me undress. I have no illusions about my body - it's mine and I enjoy occupying it but the past fifteen years hadn't been easy on me.

'Sorry,' I said, tossing my shirt aside. 'I'm not much to look at these days.'

'You think I care?' Avon said scornfully. 'Come here, Blake. Don't make me wait any longer.'

Sliding across Avon's king-sized bed seemed to take an eternity, like Zeno's paradox, where the hare can never finally catch up with the tortoise. Luckily, my relationship with Avon wasn't quite that paradoxical, so I reached him in the end, slipping my arm under his shoulders, feeling him turn and fling an arm across my chest to complete the circle. For a while, we just held on tight. Then Avon shifted, jamming his thigh under mine and levering me on top of him. He arched his back and ground his cock against my thigh, struggling and groaning, while his eyes stared through me and beyond me, as unfocused and desperate as if he were resisting a Federation torturer. I wrapped my arms around him, bearing down and pinning him to the mattress.

'Easy, love,' I whispered. 'There's no hurry. We've got all night.'

He laughed unsteadily and relaxed, which gave me a chance to pull back and get my hands on him, stroking the curve of his belly, lingering affectionately on the folds of flesh at his waist, letting him see how much I enjoyed every aspect of his body. Avon frowned up at me, blatantly incredulous, but something must have convinced him that I meant everything my hands were saying, because he sighed quietly and pushed back the covers, laying himself open to my gaze. I stared as avidly as if I'd never seen a cock before. The crushed-velvet sac, dragged down by the balls' pendulous weight; the shaft, solid as a tree root wreathed with greyblue veins; the tender rose of the cap, dewy with moisture seeping from its slit. Mute but conclusive evidence that Avon wanted me.

I groaned and grabbed, helping myself to a handful of balls and clinking their smooth pebbles together. My other hand gripped the shaft and dragged slowly upwards, purposefully delaying the moment when my thumb went skidding across the slippery head. Avon lay there, dazed and luxurious with waiting, as still and silent as he had been frantic before. I fondled and squeezed and kneaded, so absorbed that I almost missed the slight acceleration of his breathing and the restless flutter of eyelashes against his cheeks. As my hand worked faster, he bucked once and then lolled back, passive under my ministrations, although at the last minute his eyes opened wide.

'You,' he said earnestly, if somewhat enigmatically. 'You, Blake. Only you.'

I kissed him while he came, relishing the long slow pulses of his cock. Avon pumped my fist, thrashed and subsided, then gasped sharply as his shaft retracted and flung out a final arc of sperm. He stared at me for a second, eyes blank with surprise, before twisting sideways to bury his head in my shoulder. I ran a hand along the badger-stripe, smoothing springy white hairs into place and whispering something foolishly sentimental, on the assumption that Avon was too comatose to object.

My cock was still erect, which was a minor miracle: these days it usually took more than a few kisses and some participatory voyeurism to sustain my erection. I didn't want to waste the opportunity but on the other hand, I knew Avon was both exhausted and inexperienced, so it didn't seem reasonable to expect much help from him. I shifted cautiously, to avoid disturbing him, and reached down to stroke my cock. When my balls jerked with unusual force, I lifted my head and saw a square blunt-fingered hand following my hand up the shaft.

'I'll do that,' Avon said.

He circled my cock with his thumb and two fingers, just below the head, plucking at the taut string on the underside of the shaft. That was, unfortunately, one of Deva's favourite habits. I tried to block the memory but after a few awkward seconds, my erection wilted. Avon's hand slowed and his eyes met mine, intent and speculative.

'What else do you like, Blake?' he asked.

'That's nice,' I said, because it should have been - and because I didn't want to push Avon past his limits.

'I've had enough experience to know there are alternatives,' he informed me. 'Is there anything you would prefer? Fellatio, perhaps? Or anilingus - frottage - sodomy?'

Avon's academic approach turned out to be an effective aphrodisiac. I thought I was just enjoying the catalogue but my eyes must have said 'yes' to the last item, because he smiled suddenly.

'Ah,' he said. 'You will need to prepare me first - but I'm sure you are more familiar with the appropriate techniques than I.'

He rolled onto his stomach, reaching back to spread the cheeks of his arse for me. Velvet-dark skin crinkled apart, revealing an oddly innocent pink pucker. Impossible to refuse an invitation like that, although, as I snatched a tube of lubricant from the bedside cabinet, I was hit by an attack of middle-aged performance nerves. But the sight of Avon, shamelessly exposed, worked wonders. While I was coating a finger with gel, my cock tapped imperiously at my belly. I bent down to place a grateful kiss on the pucker and felt that unloved orifice respond with surprised delight, quivering gently when I substituted my fingertip for my tonguetip. I'd anticipated some resistance but my finger slipped in easily.

Well, of course. Once Avon decided he was queer, he would presumably have set about making himself an expert on homosexual activity, in the same spirit as he'd spent hours at the practice range on Liberator after becoming a reluctant terrorist.

'You've done this before?' I asked, to confirm my intuition.

'Not often,' he said. 'But often enough.'

Encouraged, I probed deeper, massaging the sphincter muscle. At the same time I slathered more gel onto my cock, smiled with relief when my erection held firm and settled myself in the cleft of Avon's thighs. As I pushed steadily forward, forcing the valve of the anus to reverse its usual operation, a sudden cramp nipped my cockhead. I kissed the back of Avon's neck, whispering, 'Relax, sweetheart,' and seconds later I was revelling in the most miraculous moment of all: when a man welcomes you so deeply that his arse opens wide.

Avon sighed and shivered. 'Oh,' he said quietly, as though he'd just made an interesting scientific discovery.

I got the impression that his previous experiences of buggery hadn't done much for him, which suggested that his offer had been untypically altruistic. That settled any residual worries about my stamina. I wanted to ram my cock as far as it would go and fuck like a stallion - but I also wanted it to be good for Avon, so I held myself still and let him rock back and forth, controlling the extent of the thrust. As he murmured appreciatively, I slid a hand under his hip, groping for his cock. He laughed and nudged my hand away.

'Not a chance,' he told me. 'But I like it, Blake.'

At the wry intimacy of his voice, my self-control frayed and snapped. I surged forward, more aroused than I'd been in years, feeling my buttocks clench and drive my cock up the warm tight channel until it was sheathed completely, caressed by the tremor of internal muscles. I laboured and plunged and came with an intensity that was almost frightening. As I slumped back onto the pillows, Avon pulled me close and held me in silence. I shifted eventually, to clean him up, but after that he latched onto me again, as silent and tenacious as before. I tried, once or twice, to break the silence but I couldn't find words for what I wanted to say. I was still searching when sleep overtook me.

Some time later I woke from a dream about fucking Avon, to find a possessive hand wrapped round my shaft and a warm mouth nuzzling my neck. The parallels between dream and waking were remarkably close, except that my cock was softly plump, instead of rampantly erect, and my dreaming mind obviously preferred to believe that we were still young men in our mid-thirties. When I ran my hand down the soft padding of Avon's back, to remind myself of the fifteen year increment, a startled gasp indicated that I'd roused him from a dream of his own. He hooked a leg over my hip, adjusting the angle of his groin until our cocks rubbed together in a lazy rhythm.

'Why are one's thoughts always clichŽs, at times like these?' he asked, ironic and amused. 'Blake, I wish this could last forever.'

'It can,' I promised rashly.

'No, it can't,' he insisted. 'Nothing lasts.'

'My ... attraction to you has lasted almost twenty years,' I pointed out.

Avon tensed and pulled back. 'Oh yes, of course,' he said with a cynical smile. 'I suppose you are about to claim that you were faithful to my memory.'

'Hardly,' I growled. 'I've already told you about Deva.'

He sighed, melancholy and triumphant. 'As I said, Blake, nothing lasts.'

I frowned and slung an arm around his waist, to anchor him more securely. 'Don't be so absolute,' I said, re-establishing the rhythm.

'Ah, but I must,' Avon whispered. His voice faded away, then gathered momentum as he said, suddenly vicious, 'If you were as enamoured as you claim, why did you never suggest this before? Surely you didn't need to wait for Jungfrau to pimp for you?'

I smiled into implacable amber eyes. 'Sweetheart, you have no idea of how well defended you were,' I told him. 'To get past your defences, I would've had to turn shrink myself - and I wanted to be your lover, not your amateur therapist. I fell for you when you risked your life to rescue me from a live cable and for the next twelve months I watched you like a hawk, ready to pounce at the slightest sign of encouragement. Then, after I found myself stranded on Epheron, I thought, "For god's sake, give up and leave the poor bastard alone".'

'But I couldn't leave _you_ alone, could I?' Avon said bitterly. 'I tracked you down ... and shot you.'

His eyes widened, exposing layers of memory fossilised in their amber depths. He twisted and backed, trying to shake me off, but I rolled with him, nailed his shoulders to the mattress and forced him to meet my gaze.

'There was a time when that mattered a lot,' I admitted. 'However, I don't believe you hate me, not any more. I know you think nothing lasts, Avon, but at least let me tell you that I've loved you for nearly half my lifetime. What's more, I intend to continue loving you for as long as I have left. I don't know whether you want to hear that but -'

'Oh, shut up,' Avon said harshly.

He seized two random handfuls of curls, hauled my head down and locked our mouths together. As I kissed him fiercely, he arched and hammered his hips against me, fighting every inch of the way to a wrenching climax. I'm not sure whether I came but it didn't matter. I was content to cradle Avon in my arms while he shuddered and stilled and drifted back to sleep, studying the bruise-brown hollows under his eyes, the dream-wracked flicker of his eyelids, the fine lines creasing his parchment skin. Words came to me, from a first calendar poem I'd read and memorised long ago.

'_Lay your sleeping head, my love,

Human on my faithless arm;

Time and fevers burn away

Individual beauty from

Thoughtful children, and the grave

Proves the child ephemeral:

But in my arms till break of day

Let the living creature lie,

Mortal, guilty, but to me

The entirely beautiful._'

Avon frowned, muttered drowsily and clutched my hand. I eased him closer, lulling both of us into a recuperative sleep. At some point during the night I opened my eyes to confirm his grip on my hand, sighed comfortably and fell asleep again. When I woke for the third time, Avon had gone. The room was grey with morning light and Hunter, the guard from the foyer, stood at the end of the bed, smiling with the enthusiasm of someone who enjoys imparting bad news.

'The boss told me to escort you out,' she said, tossing a towelling robe at me. 'But I'll let you have a shower before you go.'

*

So much for the love of a lifetime. I couldn't imagine a more ignominious ending than being hustled out like a ten-credit whore from one of Avon's expeditions to the queer bars. Mind you, the whores must've been prettier, judging by the disapproving eyebrow that Hunter hoisted at my middle-aged flab, revealed as I struggled sleepily with the robe. I swung myself out of the bed, letting the robe flap open as a minor revenge, gathered my scattered clothes and took refuge in the bathroom.

Jets of water pummelled the back of my neck, stimulating the blood supply to the brain. Bit by bit, I began to piece together my memories of the previous evening. Not a ten-credit whore, I decided. Avon had felt _something_: I had to believe that. But clearly, not enough. Hunter's presence proved that Avon had settled for being absolute, which meant I'd failed again. I'd played all my cards last night. By now, I'd reached the limits of my ingenuity - although ingenuity would, in any case, have been redundant, since Avon wasn't there to be manipulated.

Oh well, at least he hadn't shot me this time. I hoped his neo-Freudian Dr Jungfrau would be pleased about that.

When I emerged from the bathroom, dressed and relatively composed, Hunter was waiting outside, tapping her booted foot. She marched me down the corridors and informed me that breakfast was being served in the mess hall, off the foyer. My stomach growled enthusiastically but I declined the offer on principle, taking my first chance to be uncooperative. Hunter shrugged.

'All right, be like that,' she said. 'I couldn't give a flying fuck whether you leave full or starving, just as long as you get the hell out of here.'

We exchanged smiles of mutual dislike and she steered me towards the exit. Halfway across the foyer I remembered the purpose of my visit and stopped in my tracks. There was, after all, no point in returning to Avalon's base empty-handed, as well as empty-hearted.

'Not so fast,' I said. 'Your boss confirmed an order from the ARP. I need the documents for five hundred heat sensors.'

Hunter grunted irritably and directed me to an office on the far side of the foyer, where Dayna and Soolin were studying a spread of blueprints. Dayna scooped up an armful of papers and bustled off, pretending not to see me, but Soolin stood her ground.

'Sorry, Blake,' she said, while she printed out the invoice. 'We did try. But you know what he's like.'

'None better,' I confirmed. 'Thanks for last night.'

'Are you sure?' Soolin asked, glancing up to inspect me. 'Frankly, you look as though you've been to hell and back.'

'No, that happened this morning - and I suspect it's a one-way trip,' I sighed. Her eyes softened, modulating from business-like appraisal to incipient sympathy, so I added, 'Ignore that, Soolin. Self-pity's unbecoming in the elderly. Don't worry, I'll survive.'

We shook hands and I left, striding across the foyer under my own steam, before Hunter had time to resume guard duty. The doors slid open and I stepped outside. The weather on Gules was, apparently, as changeable as its owner - yesterday, bright and balmy; today, a harsh wind that swept in to scour the courtyard, keening incessantly. A perfect complement to my mood. Right then, I wanted to sit down in the dirt and lament my history of failures - the Freedom Party betrayal, the Liberator's potential wasted on a series of minor skirmishes, the fiasco of Star One, the bitter farce of Gauda Prime, my breakdown and the shameful inaction of the years that followed. I'd been so sure I was acting in everyone's best interests. So sure ... and so wrong. For all my good intentions, I'd achieved nothing and helped nobody, not even myself. As for Deva -

His name was still forming in my mind when I stalled between one step and the next, confronted by a hallucination so palpable that I almost believed it was real. Deva stood half a metre away, pushing a floppy lock of ginger hair out of his eyes, in order to frown at me with affectionate exasperation. I gulped and swayed, part of me yearning to touch and hold him, while another part noted with wry detachment that I appeared to have snapped the last of my tenuous links with sanity.

And then, while I continued to assess my mental health, the hallucination reached out and shoved me.

Real or imagined, the shove spun me round to face the xenite cathedral. I stared up at the silver towers: the glittering gargoyles: the presidential balcony braced by two long girders: the dark figure leaning on the balcony rail. _Avon_. He must have hidden somewhere in DasK's headquarters while Hunter evicted me, then returned to his room for a covert farewell. So his resolve wasn't as absolute as he wanted me to believe - but I couldn't take advantage of that, because, with Hunter on the alert, I wouldn't be able to get back inside the building.

Unless ...

Shock waves rippled down my spine, like the ghost of another shove. Then I was sprinting across to the cathedral door, latching onto a gargoyle and hoisting myself off the ground. My reflexes aren't what they used to be but even so, I'd reached the narrow ledge above the doorway before the guards started shouting. I glanced up, planning my next move, and saw Avon lean out precariously to call an order, although I couldn't catch the words, because the wind was shredding his voice into rags of sound. Not that I cared. Even if I'd known for certain that he was instructing his guards to shoot me down, I would still have carried on.

After all, I had nothing left to lose, except my life.

Right then, death seemed a highly probable outcome. As I inched across the ledge towards the girder, I heard the sharp clang of a bullet impacting on the xenite, a few centimetres ahead. Then a duller clang. I looked up again, squinting into the wind, and froze, transfixed by shock and terror. Avon had dropped onto the girder and was pacing down it, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker.

The wind buffeted him, tearing his jacket open and whipping his hair across his forehead. He wavered, adjusted the balance of his arms and continued on. I glanced involuntarily at the ground below, then gagged and pressed my cheek against chilly metal, sickened by the sight of the drop. Oh, hell. One false step and Avon would be toppling: plummeting: broken. I'd been prepared to die but I hadn't even considered the possibility that I might have to witness Avon's death.

He was halfway down the girder by now, a small dark asterisk against the cathedral's silver immensity. I watched helplessly, more frightened for him than for myself. The bullet that smashed my right shoulder was merely an annoying distraction. I hooked my left hand over a convenient gargoyle, blocked the pain by an effort of will and went on watching Avon, as though my gaze could hold him steady.

More shouts from below, swept aside by another blast of wind. Avon staggered and braced himself, suspended precariously above the dizzying gulf. For a heartstopping moment I thought he'd lost his nerve - understandably enough, given that he must've spent the last fifteen years behind a desk or in a research lab. But then his chin jutted and his foot described an arc on the air and he was moving again, treading the narrow beam with swift precision. Thank god for rubber soled boots, I thought with a gasp of hysterical laughter, counting his steps until he reached the end of the girder.

'Fool!' he said, as he stepped onto the ledge. 'You are not thirty years old now, Blake. That climb would have been dangerous, even without an audience of armed guards.'

'As dangerous as going for a stroll down a girder,' I agreed. 'I suppose you think your little performance was sensible? You could've fallen, Avon.'

'_You_ still could,' Avon spat back. He clamped his left hand over mine, swung his right foot out and straddled me, saying, 'That's better. I have you now.'

'Spare me the heroics next time,' I said, starting to shake in reaction. 'I admit it looked bloody impressive but I wasn't in any danger.'

'Oh yes, you were,' Avon said bleakly. 'You should be dead, Blake. I will have to sack the guard who missed.'

He leaned closer, shoring me up, and we clung to the ledge in silence for a while, each shaking as hard as the other. My shoulder was a sodden mass of severed nerves and my head was swimming but even so, I had enough wits left to realise that we were stranded for the time being. I couldn't move and Avon couldn't shift position without jeopardising our rather tenuous balance. Since I've always been a pragmatist, that struck me as an ideal opportunity to get the answer I'd come for.

'Tell me, Avon, why did you run?' I asked. 'Was the sex so bad?'

Avon stiffened. Under normal circumstances, he would probably have responded with a cutting comment, followed by a dignified exit, but right at that moment he had nowhere to go. Instead, he slumped fractionally, resting his forehead on my uninjured shoulder.

'No,' he said, almost inaudibly. 'So good.'

I tightened my grip on the gargoyle and tried to make sense of that last statement. 'I must've lost more blood than I realised,' I said finally. 'I thought you told me you walked out because the sex was good.'

'I shot you, Blake,' a muffled voice reminded me. 'I hardly deserve -'

'So that's it!' I cut in, suddenly elated. 'Let me test a hypothesis, Avon. If you shot me fifteen years ago, then saved me from being shot today, would that even the score?'

'It might,' he admitted, cautious as ever.

'Good,' I said briskly. 'That gives me something to work with. I know you don't love me but -'

'You know nothing of the sort,' Avon said.

I gasped with a force that racked my mangled muscles 'Then you do?' I whispered, hardly daring to believe it. 'Dear gods, and I nearly got myself killed! All right, no more equivocation. Say it, Avon.'

'Don't be absurd,' he hissed. 'This is neither the time nor the place -'

'Yes, it is,' I insisted. 'You don't want to make me feel I'm losing my grip on the situation, do you?'

A tremor of laughter shook Avon's chest, reverberating through me. 'Be serious, Blake,' he commanded.

'Oh, I am,' I told him, flexing my left hand, which had begun to cramp intolerably. Avon cursed and wedged an arm under my elbow, bearing the strain.

'Very well,' he said curtly. 'Yes, damn you! Yes. What else kept me on the Liberator, against my own self-interest? What else prompted me to spend two years searching for you? Why else did I expect so much from you that a transient misunderstanding made me attempt to kill you? Either I love you or I am certifiably insane ... if that counts as a valid distinction.'

It was all I'd ever needed to know. Relief washed through me, slackening my muscles and undermining my resistance to the pain. 'Thank you, Avon,' I breathed. 'Now you'd better move away. I won't last much longer and I don't intend to take you with me.'

My right arm was a leaden weight by now, skewing me sideways. The guard's bullet burned like a live coal embedded in my flesh and I could feel the deadly pull of gravity, enticing me to let go and fall. But as I swayed and sagged, Avon pressed against me and hitched his shoulders under mine.

'Don't be so melodramatic, Blake,' he said testily. 'I am not in my dotage yet. I can hold you.'

And he did, propping me and supporting me while I fended off the vertigo. Sustained by his strength, I managed to remain upright until shadows smudged the xenite wall and two guards reached across to take my weight. As they hoisted me off the ledge, pain lanced my shattered shoulder and I blacked out. When my eyes opened, I was on a mobile platform, winching slowly downwards, with my head cradled in Avon's lap and my left hand secure in his grasp. I twitched my fingers feebly, to signal that I wasn't dead yet, and felt a convulsive pressure in return.

Smiled exultantly and let the darkness claim me again.

*

Half an hour later, one of the DasK surgeons had dug the bullet out of my shoulder and Soolin was applying a regen pad to the lacerated flesh, somewhat hampered by Avon's insistence on remaining at my side, tacitly refusing to let go of my hand.

'I own a small island on Lindor,' he was saying. 'As I remember, the house there should be a suitable place for you to convalesce. If you like it, we can stay on, although you might prefer my Space City apartment or perhaps an interval of travel, before we come to a final decision.'

Any minute now, he would tell me that he earned so much a year and that his prospects were good. I bit down hard on my lower lip, to stop myself from laughing.

'Hold on, Avon,' I murmured, when he paused for breath.

'All right,' he said, changing tack instantly. 'If you need some sort of occupation, it may interest you to know that I've been planning to endow an academy for freedom fighters - not because I have turned revolutionary in my old age, I assure you; simply because, if Avalon's hotheads insist on continuing to oppose the Federation, I would rather see it done competently. Despite your faults, Blake, you remain the most inventive and inspiring rebel leader that this galaxy has known. If you are prepared to consider resurrection, I would be happy to place the academy in your hands.'

He gazed down at me with a willed humility that managed to combine the roles of suppliant and dictator. I considered saying, 'You don't need to bribe me, Avon' but, just in time, I recognised the gift he'd tendered. Something far more important than the academy, attractive though that idea was. In his typically offhand fashion, Avon had given me back my past.

'All those ideas sound appealing,' I informed him. 'I don't have any definite opinions at present. As a matter of fact, I just wanted you to slow down.'

Soolin grinned. 'That's Avon's business brain, processing data at twice the average clock cycles,' she commented. 'Take him away, Blake. It's time he remembered how to be human again.'

Avon swung in a slow half-circle, aiming a haughty stare in her direction. He's too self-conscious to be graceful - none of his movements is ever exactly the right movement - but that mannered performance took my breath away, all the same. I was studying him with rapt attention when Dayna let out a subdued wail.

'How can you say that, Soo?' she protested. 'Avon can't leave DasK. The place would fall apart without him.'

'I doubt it,' Avon said with a dismissive shrug. 'I haven't had a new idea in the past two years.'

'That's true,' Soolin agreed. 'You just keep refusing to admit it, Day, probably because you've always seen Avon as a father figure.'

Avon winced: another mannered performance. 'Thank you for that insight, Soolin,' he drawled. 'I have often thought that you and Dr Jungfrau would get on well together.'

'Yes, I would have made a good psychostrategist, if I'd had the education,' Soolin said smugly. 'I picked up a lot of useful tips from Dorian.'

She peeled back the regen pad, nodded with satisfaction and helped me off the bench. When I chuckled, entertained by their practised bickering, Avon glared impartially at all of us.

'Enough,' he said. 'Come to my quarters, Blake. We can continue our discussion there, without these constant interruptions.'

He settled his hand between my shoulder blades, impelling me forward. The touch shook something loose. As I faltered and stalled, random images went whirling through my mind - a windy courtyard, floppy ginger hair, a hand that stretched out to shove me.

'What is it, Roj?' Avon asked sharply.

'Nothing,' I said. 'Nothing tangible, anyway. Just a memory.'

He prowled round to confront me, stepping back and scanning my face intently. For a man who claims to have little or no interest in humanity, Avon's better at reading people than one might expect.

'A memory?' he said. 'Ah, the admirable Deva, I assume. I am jealous of him already.'

His tone was light but the lines beside his mouth deepened, compressing his lips and hollowing his cheeks. I reached out and tucked my good arm round his waist.

'Don't bother,' I said. 'Deva wasn't jealous of you.'

'Should he have been?' Avon asked, slightly disconcerted.

I laughed. 'Avon, everyone who knew me well knew that I loved you. Correction: everyone except you.'

He leaned against my side and looked up, eyes glossed with surprise and pleasure. That prompted another rush of memories - a young Avon, bright with abrasive confidence, superimposed on the older Avon, more tired and worn and wary. To elide the gap between them, I pulled him close and kissed him. Just a brief appetiser - or so I thought, until an inquisitive tonguetip probed my mouth. We clung together, trying to melt into the embrace like youthful lovers, then accepting that we were too well-padded and stiff-muscled for that and settling for mutual counterbalance. When we emerged from a long exploratory kiss, Avon's business partners were watching us benignly.

'You were right, Soo,' Dayna conceded. 'He'll be good for Avon.'

Soolin smiled complacently. 'Yes, our plan worked. Your plan as much as mine, remember.'

'_Your_ plan?' Avon echoed. 'An interesting description. Did Blake and I have any say in it?'

He glanced sidelong to share his amusement, visibly thriving on the knowledge that I loved him. I smiled back, fighting the symptoms of emotional vertigo, as I shuttled from the past into the future. Would I have been capable of overcoming my own despair and Avon's resistance, if I hadn't learnt about love from Deva? True, storming DasK's headquarters had been a classic example of my unique blend of daring and pigheadedness - but the Deva hallucination had given me the initial push, almost as though my lover had reserved some of his dying energy for one final act of altruism. At any rate, whether by good luck or ghostly intervention, I'd been offered a second chance.

I intended to make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Thanks to Pat Barker, Rohase Piercy and Geoff Ryman for the loan of my favourite lines from their novels: and to Ika for Blake-generalising.


End file.
